Decision to Block Simpson Defense Queries Upheld

Refusing to second-guess the judge presiding over the O.J. Simpson civil case, the Court of Appeals on Monday turned down a plea from defense lawyers to intervene in the trial and grant them more freedom to attack the Los Angeles Police Department.

The one-sentence ruling leaves in place the parameters that Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki set for the civil trial nearly two months ago--including restrictions on defense tactics that have clearly frustrated Simpson’s attorneys.

Fujisaki has made it clear that the defense must concentrate on rebutting the evidence against Simpson--and must not speculate about evidence that the police might have overlooked. Thus, he has not allowed the defense to bring up some of the points that proved so effective in Simpson’s criminal trial, such as investigators’ failure to collect a string of blood drops on the back of murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson.

The judge has also blocked the defense from questioning LAPD procedures in general, though he will allow pointed queries about specific actions. On Monday, for example, Fujisaki ruled that questions about police officers traipsing back and forth between the murder scene and Simpson’s estate were irrelevant--a decision that prevented the defense from airing its theory of cross-contamination.

Clearly chafing under such limitations, lead defense attorney Robert C. Baker complained in a petition to the Court of Appeals that “the jury has been left with the unchallenged impression that everything the Los Angeles Police Department did was correct, and more critically, that every significant item of evidence was collected and points to petitioner’s guilt.”

Simpson, he wrote, would be denied due process if the restrictions stood, and would be “irreparably harmed if he is required to go through the entire trial not being allowed to cross-examine [police] witnesses as to their credibility. . . .”

But a panel of three Court of Appeals justices dismissed the defense petition Monday afternoon. Simpson’s team, the justices ruled, had failed to demonstrate that they were entitled to the “extraordinary relief” of an appeals court intervention.

Legal analysts said it would have been extraordinary indeed for the appeals court to meddle in an ongoing trial, especially in a civil matter where only the defendant’s money--and not his liberty--is at stake. Ordinarily, attorneys hold any appeal until the end of the trial, when they can present the higher court with a complete transcript full of judicial decisions they consider unfair.

What’s more, Simpson’s lawyers will have an opportunity to bash the LAPD during the defense case, when they can call many of the same witnesses and attempt to grill them anew. “There’s a lot more trial to come,” said Loyola Law School Dean Laurie Levenson, suggesting that the defense appeal may have been premature. The failed challenge could end up harming the defense, Levenson added, since Fujisaki might now feel more emboldened than ever to clamp down.

Neither party mentioned the appeals court petition in court Monday, and Fujisaki did not take public note of it, either.

The day opened with jurors hearing their first bit of testimony linking Simpson to five blood drops found at the murder scene.

Attorney Thomas Lambert, who represents the estate of victim Ronald Lyle Goldman, read into evidence a set of facts that both sides have agreed on: namely, that the five drops contain the same enzymes and are of the same type as Simpson’s blood. (The defense added one caveat, reserving the right to argue that the match could have been a frame-up if someone tampered with the crime-scene evidence before it was sent out to labs for testing.)

Gregory Matheson, a chief forensic chemist for the LAPD, told jurors that based on his serological analysis, only 0.17% of the population, or one in 550 to 570 people, could have been the source of those five drops blood. Simpson fits that profile. Matheson also told jurors that police officers would not have had access to the socks found in Simpson’s bedroom--which the defense contends were splashed with blood as part of a frame-up--unless they were accompanied by a criminalist with a key to the lab.

Matheson, who spent five days on the stand in the criminal trial, testified for just a few hours Monday. He was followed by criminalist Dennis Fung, who will return today for more cross-examination.